profit-as-more

(This version of the story corrects paragraph four to give alleged profit as more than 6 million yuan instead of 600 million yuan.) BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing police have arrested an environmental reporter and his associates in an apparent extortion scandal, as China works to crack down on corruption in the news media. A string of corruption scandals in China’s news media has shaken the faith of the public in the largely state-controlled industry and in response, the media regulator unveiled tougher rules last year. The group’s ringleader, surnamed Chen, is accused of blackmailing businesses into paying hundreds of thousands of yuan to delete embarrassing online reports about their activities on a website for environmental news, the official Xinhua news agency said.